Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention relate generally to data management and more particularly to managing legal obligations for data.
Background Art
For legal and litigation purposes, data and evidence within a company is required to be preserved in anticipation of, or during, litigation or other legal matters. Global companies must deal with numerous laws that govern how the company should handle this data. Examples of these legal requirements include how long the information should be maintained, when the data should be preserved for evidence, what uses are permissible while the data is in the company's possession, and how and under what conditions the data may be transported. Some companies may need to comply with thousands of disparate legal retention, preservation, disposal, and privacy rules.
As such, the companies may comprise large legal departments for reviewing, monitoring, and analyzing such laws in countries in which the legal department operates. Each legal department typically has a set of procedures it follows to ensure appropriate compliance. While the legal department has legal and professional obligations under the law for dealing with a broad array of data, the legal department does not have control or custody of the data. The data is, typically, under the control of a corporate information technology (IT) department.
In large companies, the IT department may manage hundreds or thousands of systems and move an incredible amount of data each year. Increasing rate of information flow along with increasing volume of information make it extremely challenging to manage and move data at a speed of business while also ensuring compliance with the many thousands of laws that dictate or constrain data management.
The legal department interprets the law with respect to data, while the IT department manages the data. As such, the two departments must work together to resolve data obligation issues. Typically, a legal department personnel (e.g., a lawyer) uses e-mail to send a single, narrow notice to an IT personnel with instructions for managing data involved in a legal matter. Over a course of a month, thousands of these e-mails may be exchanged between personnel in the legal and IT departments.
Unfortunately, many disadvantages and shortcomings result from the conventional exchange of e-mails or other communications such as phone calls between individuals in the legal and IT departments. First, no management transparency is available. That is, only the individuals sending and receiving the e-mails are aware of the legal instructions and response requirements. Additionally, it is difficult to monitor completion of any legal instruction or monitor for compliance with legal obligations. Furthermore, it is virtual impossible to detect overlapping and conflicting obligations since obligations are only known to each personnel sending or receiving the instructions.
With respect to the IT department, additional burdens and disadvantages exist. For example, IT personnel may need to file and manage countless individual e-mails from various legal department personnel in order to track tasks to perform. Furthermore, since legal tasks are not the primary daily duty of the IT personnel, a single e-mail from the legal department may be lost in an onslaught of other more routine activities and communications. Unfortunately, when IT personnel change roles or leave, it is often difficult to transition tasks to other personnel, and legal duties may be easily forgotten or lost in the process.
Another disadvantage of conventional systems is that the legal department tends to think about elements in a different manner than the IT department. Legal staff is geared to legal issues (e.g., lawsuits and cases); compliance staff may think in terms of classification schemes and laws; and IT staff think in terms of specific systems being managed. Furthermore, such systems may contain data subject to multiple legal issues, laws, and jurisdictions. When legal and compliance instructions are not readily understood by those who must follow or enforce the instructions, error may occur. There are many significant fines, sanctions, judicial reprimands, and public relation disasters that can occur as a result.